- The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the world and undertakes a quest to discover what has happened to the other unicorns. It has sold more than six million copies worldwide since its original publication, and has been translated into at least twenty-five languages (prior to the 2007 edition).